2025 in 2025: Day 178

Tracks - PASSPO☆

My self-made compilation that I spoke about in length. Go read that and let me mourn their disbanding in peace!

Highlights: Tracks, バスタブ, サンキュバースデイ♪, Musical Party, 少女飛行 [5th Anniversary Version]

8/10

Traction - Supergroove

This album is so strangely mixed; they are predominantly a funk and ska band, yet the guitars are mixed WAY up the front, to the point where the vocals sound like they are behind a wall., and that snare has some seriously humongous reverb. And I cannot say I am a fan of the guitar tone at all. But the groove sure is... super. Thank you, I will be here all the time listening to my never-ending iTunes library...

Highlights: Can't Get Enough, Next Time, 

7/10

Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman

Talk about soul! Tales of living less than good lives; heartache, abuse, fighting for a better life and just wanting to get away from it all.

Highlights: Fast Car, Baby Can I Hold You, Talkin' Bout a Revolution, Scorpio Girls, You Gotta Know

7/10

Trampoline - The Mavericks

I have only the one song - Dance the Night Away. Pretty they really only have one song, right? People love hearing this song live, for some reason.

7.5/10

Transformers: History of Music 1984-1990 - Various Artists

This is a MASSIVE compilation of all the music used in the Japanese anime adaptations of The Transformers. Every piece of music is here, from opening and closing themes to incidental music and karaoke versions. This compilation originally included a song by PSYCHIC LOVER and was my first real introduction to Japanese pop & rock music! Basically, where I am in life now can all be traced back to watching the Headmasters & Victory anime shows... Some of the main themes are very cool and a bit funky, but I think we can all agree that some of these are completely unnecessary.

Highlights: The Headmasters, You Are A Transformer, Transformer V, Theme of Transformer Z

6.5/10

The Transformers: The Movie (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) - Various Artists

I refuse there to believe there could possibly be an album that is more 80s rock than this. Vince DiCola's score is pretty darn epic, too - his use of odd time signatures is very compelling.

Highlights: The Touch - Stan Bush, Dare - Stan Bush, The Transformers (Theme) - Lion, Nothin's Gonna Stand in Our Way - Spectre General

9/10

Trash We'd Love - the HIATUS

細美さん still sounds like his ELLEGARDEN days here, vocally. Lyrically it is worlds away! But this album is still the closest kind of bridge between the two bands, while sounding very different. It goes pretty hard. My man was clearly working through some stuff, but it made for more of a serious emo kind of thing. Wow I actually forgot how intense this album gets.

Highlights: 紺碧の夜に, Silver Birch, Storm Racers, Ghost in the Rain

8.5/10

The Traveling Wilburys Collection (Deluxe Edition) - The Traveling Wilburys

These are the bonus tracks from the big re-release. They are fine, but I just do not like having them tacked onto the end of otherwise perfect albums.

Highlights: Maxine, Like a Ship

6/10

The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 - The Traveling Wilburys

This albums is such a fine continuation of what George Harrison and Jeff Lynne were doing on Cloud 9. Just with added input from other experts in their field. I would make a comment about them all being old men, but I am the same age now as Harrison was at the time...

Highlights: End of the Line, Heading for the Light, Tweeter and the Monkey Man, Handle with Care

8.5/10

The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 3 - The Traveling Wilburys

Less of a polished pop rock record and more of a roots/country rock record, in my opinion. But, given the players involved, it is right in their Q-Zone and they sound like they are having a lot of fun. 

Highlights: Inside Out, Poor House, Wilbury Twist, Cool Dry Place

7.5/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 1740

FREE PALESTINE

2025 in 2025: Day 38

Cold Roses - Ryan Adams and The Cardinals

I want to say bad things about this album. I really do. But it still holds up as an awesome piece of work. From song one, this album is brilliant. And by the time I reach simply the ending of Cherry Lane (which is amazing), I am once again convinced this album is very very good. Certainly a high point of The Cardinals - it was their first album and they never topped it. Heck, I'm not sure they did anything that even came close to matching it. 

Highlights: Meadowlake Street, Let It Ride, If I Am a Stranger, Life is Beautiful

9/10

Cold Roses Rarities - Ryan Adams and The Cardinals

I checked my marathon notes and was surprised at how little I wrote about Cold Roses. And I stand by what I wrote about these songs; they really sound like they have zero to do with that album and are mostly not good.

Highlights: Nope

5/10

Cold Spring Harbor - Billy Joel

Dude is doing his best Paul McCartney impersonation throughout this album; then I realise it was recorded and released in 1971, so The Beatles being a massive influence is not really a surprise. This is mostly acoustic; simply Billy Joel singing while accompanied on piano or guitar, though a few songs have some overdubs and whatnot. Overall, it makes for a very simple and relaxed debut album that is not too dissimilar in parts to Elton John's 70s work.

Highlights: You Can Make Me Free, Turn Around

6/10

Collected Works 1962-1990 - George Harrison

I really need to clean this up; I'm certain I have 95% of these songs elsewhere and in better quality, so not sure why I still have it. It would have saved me about 5 hours of listening time today! That said, going chronologically through the career of George Harrison is a pretty decent way to spend 5 hours... I'm curious as to what some of these sources were, because some have different lead ins and It's All Too Much has a very extended outro. Ditto for Something. And then they end super abruptly. I am now convinced Blue Jay Way could have been a much better song. "Without going out of my door/I can know all things of Earth" - George predicting the internet in 1968. Once The Beatles meet their end, it's on to an endless supply of demos - including some jamming with Bob Dylan! That demo of Dark Horse sure gives a good idea of how the song/album could have sounded if George had stayed healthy. And once we hit the 80s, there seem to be a bunch of songs that I am actually not all that familiar with?!? Like, are these b-sides or outtakes or something? And we finish things off with the extended Traveling Wilburys singles. Some neat little surprises on here!

Highlights: Dehra Dun, Dark Horse (Demo), Flying Hour, Lay His Head, Sat Singing, Cheer Down [Because these are all rarities]

7/10

A Collection - Third Eye Blind

This is not the actual album they released, merely a collection of their b-sides/rarities that I collected and then threw under that album title to keep them in one nice place. And it only covers 1997 to around 2005? Well, that was peak 3eb, so that makes sense. Because these songs are all awesome; fun punk rock, good upbeat pop rock, stupid immature Xmas songs, ridiculous sad songs. These cover all the Third Eye Blind genres.

Highlights: New Girl, Christmas Reincarnated, Persephone, Eye Conqueror

8/10

The Collection - Alanis Morissette

As you can expect about now, this is only the songs that aren't on an actual album. Which is not many. Quality over quantity, mofos! Still is about as awesome as Alanis gets this side of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. I have no idea where this live version of Dear Prudence came from. Did I just get obsessed with the song so much that I looked up live versions by my favourite artists? It is underwhelming - particularly after the supreme awesome that is Uninvited.

Highlights: Still, Uninvited

9/10

'Albums' listened to so far: 320